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2026 General Election · Tuesday, November 3, 2026

Texas House District 5

2 candidates, listed alphabetically.

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Candidates

Hector Garza

Democratic

Work
Former concrete company owner; Smith County Democratic Party chair

Hector Garza owned a concrete company for more than 20 years and studied engineering at the University of New Mexico. He has chaired the Smith County Democratic Party since 2022.

Sources for Garza

Cole Hefner

RepublicanIncumbent

In office now
State Representative, District 5
Work
State Representative, Texas House District 5 (since 2017); small business owner in the insurance industry

Cole Hefner is the sitting State Representative for District 5 in the Texas Legislature, a district that includes all or part of Camp, Rains, Smith, Titus, Upshur and Wood counties.

Cole Hefner has represented Texas House District 5 since 2017 and chairs the Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans' Affairs Committee. He previously served as an Upshur County commissioner and owned a construction business for 16 years before taking over his family's commercial construction company.

Hefner's committees

  • Congressional Redistricting, Select
  • General Aviation, Select
  • Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans' Affairs (Chair)
  • Redistricting
  • Transportation
  • S/C on Transportation Funding

Sources for Hefner

Sources

Candidate list and race details

What's included
U.S. Senate and House, statewide offices and every state legislative district on the ballot.
Everything else
Local races (county, city, school board, judges) and anything else on your ballot are on your official sample ballot: teamrv-mvp.sos.texas.gov.
Candidate lists
As of Wednesday, October 14, 2026.

This is not an official ballot. Confirm your registration, polling place and ballot with your election office through vote.gov.